Monthly Archives: July 2016

In an interview with Italian TV channel Canale 5, Ağca says he wants to travel with the Pope to Fatima in 2017 to pray with him to the Madonna.

Ağca, 58, served 19 years in an Italian prison for the shooting before he was pardoned in the jubilee year of 2000 at the Pontiff’s request. He was deported to Turkey, where he spent an additional decade behind bars until 2010.

“Here in Turkey, I live as a pensioner wasting my time,” Ağca said in the interview.

“That’s why I want to make an appeal to Pope Francis: Welcome me in the Vatican, and I will become a priest,” he said.

“After John Paul II visited me in prison, I thought about it, and I studied the Gospel at length,” he said. “I know the sacred books better than many others. If the Pope welcomes me, I’ll be a priest and I will celebrate Mass, if he wants me.”